CONSTANCE AND A FIREMAN

There's a small fire in a shop across from Brumpton Library

It was Saturday morning and Constance had the assistance of a very part-time Janet Goody to deal with the weekend rush at Brumpton Borough Library.

“There’s a lot of fuss outside,” said Janet as she hung her coat on the only hook in the staff cubbyhole, on top of Constance’s.

“I heard bells,” agreed Constance, “what is it?”

“There’s an alarm at the chemist’s,” explained Janet, “I think it’s the fire alarm gone off again. It does that sometimes.”

“It’s a nuisance,” agreed Constance, “after all, I’ve never known a real fire there, but the fire brigade has to come anyway when the alarm goes off. I bet they’re fed up with it.”

“How’s that lodger of yours doing?” asked Janet, picking up a duster.

“Bert? Oh, he’s gone back to Mildred. She came in and was so apologetic I thought she was going to melt! She’s got quite a mouth on her, but I could tell Bert’s got feelings there. After all, he stayed the night with me and didn’t try anything on!”

“Shame,” grinned Janet, “as window-cleaners go he’s quite manly!”

“I don’t know how window-cleaners go,” sniffed Constance, “Hey! Wake up! There’s action on the street!”

Janet rushed to the window and stared out.

“There are flames!” she exclaimed, “I can see them! In the chemist’s shop, real live living flames!”

Constance rushed to join her at the window. A crowd was gathering outside and a huge shining red fire engine tried to blast its way through them, hooting and its bell ringing with serious urgency. The crowd, reluctantly it seemed, gave way, and the engine pulled up outside the shop, which was now belching smoke or what looked like steam from an open door.

“Look at that!” pointed Janet, “he’s a hunk!”

The lead fireman, it seemed, was a hunk, and he led his team as they uncoiled a hose and started dowsing flame and shop stock alike with the enthusiasm that was no doubt born of the relative scarcity of real fires..

“He is,” murmured Constance as a familiar kind of wirbling started stirring inside her abdomen, “quite a hunk indeed!” And, she noted secretly, in quite a uniform.

“If I wasn’t a married woman...” grinned Janet.

“If you weren’t a married woman what?” asked Constance mischievously.

“I’d be putting the kettle on and inviting him for a nice hot cuppa when he’s finished with his long pipe,” sighed Janet, “but I am a married woman, and happily so.”

“Well I’m not,” sighed Constance, “and I can dream if I want to.”

They watched the firemen (or fire fighters, actually, because there were two women in their number) as they went about their business, most of the time seeming to be checking that every hot spot within the building had been turned to something akin to wet ice.

“He’s coming this way!” hissed Janet, still at the window and polishing the same shelf for the zillionth time.

Constance returned to the window. In his uniform and helmet the lead fireman looked very much the action man, rugged and, to Constance’s eyes, gloriously masculine. The wirbling inside her intensified.

“I’ll put the kettle on!” she gasped.

“Don’t give him the corporation muck!” screeched Janet, “It’ll put him off us for good!”

“I’ve bought some proper tea bags,” assured Constance.

“I didn’t know that!”

“I only bought them on my way in today,”

“That’s all right then.”

“It was the window-cleaner’s idea.” She wanted to say Bert’s idea but it might have sounded too familiar, so she didn’t.

The door squealed open and the tall fire-fighter, occupying, it seemed, it’s full height and width, arrived into the house of literacy and learning like a latter-day deity.

“What a treat!” simmered Janet as he made his way to the librarian’s counter where, as if by magic, she had appeared.

“I thought I’d pop in and check you’re all okay in here while my team cleans up and finishes off,” he said in a voice that was dramatically the diametric opposite to his appearance. Janet had been expecting it to be gruff, manly, expansive, but it was none of those things, as if it had never broken properly in his teens.

“We’re … okay...” stuttered Janet.

“I guess you might have time for a cup of tea,” smiled Constance, poking her head out of the cubbyhole where the kettle was steaming as if boiling might be going out of fashion.

“That’d be nice,” he said quietly. “This being a library and a library being full of books I thought I’d make sure that no sparks from the fire across the road blew this way. Paper burns, you know.”

“At Fahrenheit 451 degrees,” said Constance, “But I doubt if any sparks would find a way in if they did,” she added.

“I’ll just take a peek around anyway,” he said.

He swiftly wandered about and noted there were no open windows and therefore there was no way that something as small as a spark could find its way in, and returned to the two women who were exchanging meaningful glances.

“Everything’s okay, and thanks for the cha,” he chirruped at them. Janet felt like giggling and bent down to pick an imaginary book off a lower shelf whilst Constance was more serious.

“That was quite a job you did over there at the fire,” she said.

“It was only a small affair,” he replied airily, “a display of merchandise had slipped onto an electric heater and caught light. They’d put it out before we got here, but being fire fighters we had to fight something, and I’m afraid we made quite a mess of the rest of their stock!”

“Merchandise?” asked Janet, reappearing.

“Yes. And the joke is it was a display of condoms! You know, French letters! And, boy, don’t they create a stink when they go up in smoke.”

“Especially the flavoured ones, I should think,” grinned Janet.

“Flavoured ones?” asked Constance, suddenly aware that there might be aspects of life she was sadly ignorant of.”

“Strawberry and, yum-yum, chocolate,” said Janet in mock seriousness.

While Constance was trying to work out why condoms needed to taste of summer fruits and totally failed, the fireman nodded towards Janet.

“It might have been something like them that did for my vocal chords,” he said seriously.

“You what?” almost yapped Janet.

“I was at work when we were called to a sweet factory, you know, where kiddies sweets are made, and the number of weird smells was enough to knock me out. They pulled me out, of course, or I wouldn’t be here talking to you now, but mu throat was affected really badly and my voice changed.”

“I’m sorry,” murmured Constance.

“It made quite a change to my life,” he mused. “There I was, six feet tall and with a fine baritone voice, courting Jessie Palmer, you might have heard of her?”

Constance shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she murmured.

“Well, she’s a singer and she went on one of those television talent shows and won! She’s had hit records and everything! And we were supposed to be a duo, you know, me with my baritone and she with her soprano. Not classical stuff, though, just lovely melodies and inspiring words. There’ll always be a place for proper songs...”

“That’s my kind of music,” agreed Constance, not sure that it was but it sounded as though it should be.

“Anyway, that fire wrecked my voice for good. There was something nasty in the smoke… and Jessie found herself another baritone, and I was put on the scrap heap.”

“I’m sorry,” sighed Constance.

“Anyway, she and her new bloke went on the telly and won, and now she reckons she’s Lady Muck,” sighed the fire-fighter. “And I’m a better singer than him too,” he added reflectively.

“What a dreadful story,” murmured Constance.

He finished his tea and picked up his helmet. “I’ll have to go,” he said quietly, “or they’ll go back to the station without me. Thanks for the tea.” Then he turned to Constance, “and thanks for listening,” he said.

Constance watched him as he marched with manly strides to the squealing door, and out onto the street.

“You could be in there,” teased Janet.

“Poor man,” sighed Constance, clearing away the empty mugs. “But I don’t even know his name,” she added sadly.

© Peter Rogerson 15.01.18